More Horsecrap in the Spending Bill

In a reversal of three decades of government policy that protected all wild horses, a provision approved by Congress last weekend would allow some of them to be sold to slaughterhouses.

The provision, attached to an omnibus spending bill by Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for the Interior Department, requires the sale of wild horses that have been rounded up and are more than 10 years old or have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times. The bill is awaiting final action.

The new language appears to override an existing requirement that those buying horses for adoption care for them for a year before assuming ownership, a hedge against horses being sold for slaughter. Now, the prospective law says, unwanted or old horses "shall be made available for sale without limitation."

There are about 37,000 horses and burros running free in 10 Western states, but most are in Nevada, said Maxine Shane, a spokeswoman for the Reno office of the Bureau of Land Management. An additional 14,000 are in captivity in Oklahoma and Kansas, with a few thousand more in regional facilities. Ms. Shane estimated that at least 8,000 of the horses in captivity would be eligible for immediate sale to the highest bidder.